Hey, most likely only Ben....or Malishka if I tell her about it.

This weekend was pretty kickass, although now I am sick so this coming week might not be so crash hot. But let me tell you about it shall I......

For once something interesting actually happened on a weekday this time. I don't exactly remember which day it was, but it was at lunchtime and we were standing around the foreigner benches as we have dubbed them....when this woman came up to my friend Anne and asked her if she knew any guys who could be male models or something along those lines......I was just standing there while they pondered, waiting.....still waiting.....then she left. Needless to say I was highly offended. Eventually though she ended up talking to the douchy american tool.

A few minutes later a camera crew came and there was a big commotion. Apparently some "famous" comedian came and was pretty much making fun of the foreigners.....so he talked to a few of them who had better Japanese skills, and then promptly left. So that was the most interesting thing during the school week.

So anyway I thought Friday night would be pretty quiet because noone had told me of any plans to go out or anything. So I made some spaghetti and ate it in my room....about half an hour later however I get a call on my room phone from one of the damn swedes, Julia, asking me if I wanted to go out to dinner with them......I could not turn it down. So we walked down to an all you can eat, cook yourself type place.....it was really nice, and as it was just Me, Tori, Julia, Amy and Zenen it was pretty good. We ate a lot in the 70 minutes they alotted us, definitely worth it, we want to go there again sometime.

Julia and Tori straight away began drinking wine and beer at dinner. You could tell right away that Julia was getting drunk because she began to talk loudly about very inappropriate and sexual things at the dinner table. It was hilarious. After dinner was over we walked home and headed to the kitchen to hang out. Eventually more people came and brought more drinks (but this time I actually abstained from booze, to prove I am not a total alcoholic).....We were trying to find the Korean girl Jeong Ju's limit....but she';s a total beast and didn't even seem the slightest bit drunk.

Saturday I think I didn't wake up until 1 or 2 in the afternoon/.....pretty much did nothing for the rest of the afternoon until the super awesome houseparty at night. I had made lamingtons a few nights previously, which was quite a feat mind you as we don't have an oven......So I used the oven setting on the microwave to bake a cake, it was very interesting.....anyway the party was really fun. Mr and Mrs Morita made Takoyaki....it was so good.....everyone had brought food, it was all delicious, I was so full by the end. Then Tori had made a trivia contest....guess who's team won by the way....that's right, it was MINE.....booyeah!!!.....didn't win anything though, just the satisfaction of winning. After that Freddie did a card trick for us, his magic is becomming a common thing at parties now, it's really cool.....i still maintain that he is a witch.

Today I was supposed to go to a baseball game of our university vs our rival....however I woke up this morning with a really bad headache and sore throat and was coughing quite badly, so i decided not to go and just take it easy at home. Anne made me some sort of german pastry, it was yummy. Other than that I didn't leave my room once coz I was feeling quite crap

So here I am, I have to do some more study now. I apologise for the shoddy and rushed appearance of this entry, but I want to get in as much study and hw as I can so I can get to bed at a reasonable hour. For you see this week I have to get up early 3 days a week because I am rostered on to garbage duty with my neighbour Milje.....bah, no sleeping in tomorrow :(

Hope you all are well, hopefully more people are reading it now that I am more consistent with my posting

Miss you all still very much

Jono

Hey y'all,

I am making good on my promise to update this blog when I can. Right now I should be doing homework, especially as I chose to stay home instead of going out in order to do it. So I will get back to it as soon as I'm done with this. So yea, nothing really knew going on at uni, classes are hard, but workload isn't as bad as I was expecting. I definitely feel that my japanese is improving, although I still struggle with speaking. Often times people will talk to me in Japanese and I understand what they are saying, but I can't express what I want to say. That obviously makes me seem like I don't understand at all. So that is what I'd like to do. I'm going to keep trying to talk japanese as much as I can because that is definitely my weakness at the moment.

I also do 2 english language subjects once a week which is a big relief, as I am able to express my opinions properly. First one I do is the UN. I think it is quite interesting, but the teacher is a bit boring. He likes to talk about his own credentials with the UN a lot, but every second week we have a bit of a panel debate.....and because half the class is japanese and I guess aren't confident enough with their english it makes it easier to speak up.....so I hope that helps with my confidence in class when I come back home.

The other subject I do is called International Peace Studies. Surprisingly it is actually pretty good. It is run by a Danish professor who is head of some big peace foundation, he has also been all over the world so he definitely knows what he is talking about. So we learn about peace funnily enough. Last week was the Gandhian ideal of nonviolent resistance.

Anyway, monday I finally got my bike fixed after leaving it at the school. I was so happy because I was able to converse with the bike shop owner enough that he knew what to do, and he would ask me questions that I could answer. However it became apparent that my bike really is a piece of crap. I needed a whole new tyre and he kept asking me if I wanted the pedals or the brakes fixed too....but all together I could have bought a new used bike for the same price.....maybe I should have instead.

The worst thing though is, I spent that money on fixing it, and now I have lost the damn key! So I haven't been able to ride the damn thing. I have looked all over my room and I can't find it anywhere. But it has to be in the house somewhere because I needed it to lock my bike outside. It is very frustrating.

Friday night it was a girl called Yuka (who doesn't live with us) 's birthday so we went down to the river. There were heaps of international students there, it was quite cool because I don't know all of them. Anyway one of the buddies, Junko, came and took a few of us to her "special place", which is an izakaya in some creepy back alley. (an izakaya is basically like a bar)......so anyway the deal was we would have nomihoudai (all you can drink) for one hour and it only cost 1000 yen, which is about 12 dollars i think.....so yea cheeeeeap as

Unfortunately I may have taken advantage of this offer a bit too much, I lost count of all the various tequila and vodka drinks I had but it was a lot nonetheless, and I got a bit loud and annoying from what I can remember. Luckily for me an Australian girl called Amy got most of the ridicule when she puked in the sink......so she was our House's drunk of the week instead of me. I also don't remember coming home, but people have told me that we took a taxi back and they took me to bed.....so at least I live with some nice, responsible friends here. A lot like back home :)

So yea that was a bit regrettable and I think I may keep it on the backburner for a bit, lest I make a complete ass of myself.

Yesterday I felt so crap too, headache, felt like I was going to be sick....so I just lay in most of the day. I had to go shopping so I went and did a massive shop at the supermarket, other than that didn't get much done. Which brings us to today, again nothing being done....must get back to homework.

So I'll catch y'all later

Jono

hey stupid douchefaces,

not really sorry for not posting much. Speaking of which you sound like my parents always nagging me for news (thanks to you ben btw). My posts of late would have just been: Went to uni today, same old stuff, went to the supermarket, went to bed. My life really isn't that interesting during the week.

Oh and also, if you damn read them can you comment or something.....it's all well and good to say you check, but if I don't know anyone is reading until they start bitching at me, puts me off from posting a bit. I am trying to figure out a better notification system. Facebook got a bit tedious and my sister has my msn so I can't think of anything other than just habitual checking. So shut your damn gobs and quit complaining.

ANYWAY, now that I actually have stuff to talk about I shall divulge. Apart from the usual weekday numbness that comes with university studies anywhere in the world. Friday night it was decided that we would go to Lake Biwa on the Saturday for a picnic. For those of you who don't know Lake Biwa is a lake....a pretty big one (unless Im mistaken it's the biggest in Japan)....anyway I shall get to that. So on friday night a whole bunch of us were in the upstairs kitchen helping to make sandwiches for the trip. Egg Salad and Ham an Cheese, I was a big help....if I do say so myself.

During the sandwich prep, someone opened a bottle of wine, probably Amy. Now this may not even relate to that fact at all (especially as I didn't have any) but Julia said she would clean up the dishes if we all sang Queen for her. A choir rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody ensued, top of our lungs type thing.....people were drawn out of their rooms to inquire, strangely the landlords or the house buddies didnt come to tell us to shut the hell up.

Another bright idea during this period was to go down to the basement and make use of one of the ofuros (baths) that we have in the house. And before you ask/have horrible nightmares.....we were clothed, at least somewhat....I turned a pair of my pyjama pants into shorts....everyone else wore swimming costumes. I think 7 people was the most we could fit in the bath, and it was damn hot (temperature wise you sickos)....but afterwards we were all so relaxed and tired, but we decided to play monopoly anyway.......I had to argue a lot, because people have stupid rules.....but anyway I couldnt finish coz I was so tired, I just went to bed.

Next day I got ready to go to bike to the train station with the gang. I tried to pump up my bike tires but it turns out they werent just flat, there was probably a small hole in it somewhere. So I figured I would just try to put up with it on the 5 minute trip to the station. I put the sandwiches in my backpack and we were off.......less that 20 metres from leaving, I realised the tyre is a big problem, my whole bike was wobbling like crazy, had to concentrate so hard just to stop myself from veering into oncoming traffic. And this wasn't just because I am terrible at riding my bike regardless.

Eventually through all this concentration i lost everyone who was in front of me.....it was just me and Yeiji from korea, and we didnt know which fork in the road they took so we guessed (take a stab at whether it was right or not)......so luckily Yeiji is practically fluent in japanese so she would keep asking people how to get to the station and they all said it was far. So i got off and walked my bike until we finally got to the station, but noone was there. We went inside and asked the ticket guy if any foreigners had been there.....he said they were there but left and he didnt know where. So we didn't know what to do, without phones or anything we didnt have any ideas, so we decided just to go home......when out of nowhere we here "THERE THEY ARE".....turns out they were looking for us (or the sandwiches in my bag I don't really know)

Train trip there was pretty good, took about an hour but we made it eventually......walked over to the "beach" and it was getting a bit windy and cold, but we didn't care.....we ate and talked it was a lot of fun. On the lake we saw these guys on jetskis, we kept waving at them and Yeiji said she wanted to have a go on one....although with her limited english it came out as "Ride me!"....which needless to say was HILARIOUS.......but yea japanese people are so nice we waved them over and offered them fruit and yeiji asked if she could have a go.....so they let her.....then Joc, Julia and Amy all had goes....we could hear them all screaming from shore, it looked great. We left and went home and were so tired we just went to bed.

So today I went to Kyoto station to meet none other than Ashleigh who was in town. It was good seeing a familiar face for the first time in a month. She had been on tours and stuff and said she just wanted to walk around the places you wouldn't ordinarily go to. So as I needed to get my bike fixed anyway I thought we'd kill two birds with one stone. We picked up my bike from the pharmacy car park where I left it the night before and attempted to walk it to the bike shop near my uni. Ordinarily it should take about 30 minutes, however I think I took the long route, and it took an hour and a half lol....but the walk was nice enough.

Anyway when we finally get to the bike shop it was freaking closed, so I just dumped my bike in a bike park nearby and decided I'd go back tomorrow when I'm at uni anyway. We were hungry so we decided to catch a random bus to anywhere,....turned out it was to Shijo Kawaramachi, which is the big shopping area....the bus was damn packed though. I think it was a special festival day or something because there were lots of parades....and more traffic than usual. The bus trip was horrible, so long. We said we just felt like something fatty and gross to eat........ENTER MACDONALDS......oh yes, my first maccas in over a month. We were so hungry (having had nothing all day) that we went to town on that place.....we probably undid all our walking in one sitting but it was so worth it. Anyway we then walked back to the station and I got on my bus to come home to do *sigh* homework :(

So that's my fun filled weekend. I shall post more when I actually do something....so keep checking....and actually comment something so I know who's reading. Idiots.

Love Y'all :D

Jono